Strawberry Preserves

What’s your favorite taste of summer? Mine is crisp, juicy watermelon, although buttered sweet corn, or thick slabs of homegrown tomato on white bread with mayo are right up there too.

The ripe berry reds, sunny yellows, fresh garden calicoes, and crisp gingham checks of this little quilt are the very essence of summertime!

 

It's a project I set aside years ago when I gave up doing handwork. Fortunately, my friend Ruth offered to finish it. 

Just look at her beautiful stitches! She crosshatched through the 2" squares... 

and quilted cables in the daisy-print border. I love how the perle cotton catches the light.

Look, there are strawberries on the back too.

 

 

It's a little bit of summer to savor when I please!

"Strawberry Preserves"

15” x 17”

2019

Scenes of Summer

Hello everyone! How was your summer? Mine was filled with extraordinary moments shared with extraordinary friends, like

Wanda Hanson of Exuberant Color who surprised me with one of her signature batik colorwash quilts. Read more about it HERE. 

Quilting friends brought "show and tell" with their visits. Here's Sheila with her Sunflower quilt and me with Wanda's Zig-Zag.

Jenny shared fresh-picked cherry tomatoes and basil from her garden, and Jean baked a delicious peach cobbler (with real Georgia peaches) and the best blueberry pie we've ever tasted!

Local troubadour, Bill Glaysher, serenaded me one afternoon. Swoon!

Which enabling friend helped make this online purchase? I couldn't resist a few new American Jane fabrics.

It was pure bliss listening to my friend, Bev, read aloud!

We were also invited to a bridal shower hosted by friends, Mark and Linda. What lured us out on a 97-degree day was the promise of mimosas and eight different kinds of cake!

Thanks for all the love, my friends. You made it a truly memorable summer! 

Spring At Last

What a welcome sight! Crocuses are blanketing the landscape like a colorful patchwork quilt. From the moment they emerge, often while there's still snow on the ground, their hardy blossoms dance with abandon like they're grateful to be leaving winter behind... and aren't we all?

My friend, Debbie, shared this photo from Flowers on Fargo, a private garden in Geneva, Illinois. Each spring, it bursts into color  with crocuses, tulips, and other flowering perennials. Check out the link above!  

Perhaps it's the colors that drew me to this vintage Dutchman's Puzzle quilt. Do you suppose the maker had crocuses in mind when she pieced those purple triangles or was this just a popular color scheme in the 1940s?

All those triangles

poking through a bed of white

to dance their way across a quilt

sure look like crocuses to me!

Wishing you all a happy spring & summer!

Midwinter Blues

Hello everyone. I had another birthday recently and with it came this gorgeous quilt from Barb. You may recognize the pattern as Midwinter Blues, designed by Lori DeJarnatt for her 2014 Humble Quilts sew-along. 

Aren't these fabrics exquisite? I've never seen such deep, saturated blues or "sharp" cheddars. Double-click photos for more detail.

All those patchwork points and angles make for a lively quilt, especially when high contrast fabrics like these are used. To offset the visual energy, Barb chose a quilt design with gentle curves.

The machine quilting adds subtle design without drawing attention to itself. Notice how the silk thread practically melts into the background! 

Here's another great fabric on the back--"E pluribus unum" or "Out of many, one." 

Thank you, Barb. I'm humbled by this gift and promise to be a worthy custodian of your work! XO

 

If you'd like to make your own Midwinter Blues quilt, instructions can be found on Lori DeJarnatt's  Humble Quilts blog: 

Part 1   Part 2   Part 3   Finale.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful!

Hello, everyone! If you live outside the purple zone on the weather map, you may be unaware how bitterly cold it is here in the Midwest. Our single-digit temperatures and -25° to -40° wind chills are breath-taking cold! Bone-chilling cold! FROSTBITE COLD! Needless to say, we're hunkered down for the duration.

My husband keeps his "expeditions" to a minimum in weather like this, braving the elements only to trek down the sidewalk for mail or to clear the driveway of snow--not that we're going anywhere! Each time he opens the storm door, it whines in icy protest as if to ask, “Are you sure you want to venture out today?”

I'm snug and warm with a cozy new quilt made by my friend, Mary Conley. "The blocks might look familiar," she whispered as she placed it in my lap. Indeed they did; they were red and green nine-patches I'd abandoned almost twenty years earlier! 

I could hardly believe my eyes! Here were those very blocks looking fresh and new in a jaunty on-point setting. Mary's choice of homespun really compliments the nine-patches and ties everything together. 

There's homespun on the back too and swirly quilting for the final blustery touch.

So, here's where you'll find me this winter, wrapped in the comfort of Mary's quilt. In the meantime, Happy New Year and best wishes for 2018!

Will Strip for Fabric!

Hi everyone. Hope you're keeping cool this summer. I get so lethargic and irksome in this heat. Most days, it’s hard to do much more than nap! 

My Piecemaker friends shared photos of quilts they made from our Spider Web fabric exchange. It’s fun to see each quilter's interpretation of this classic string-pieced design. Enjoy! 

And here’s our friend, Patt, dressed as a stripper. How else would you dress for a "strip" swap?

Hey, Macarena!

Hello all! It’s been awhile since I posted a bona fide, start to finish, made with my own two hands kind of quilt. I made this Spider Web, aka Kaleidoscope, in a fabric swap with my "Piecemakers" quilt friends. 

The theme was “pastels” so each of us contributed six yards worth of assorted strips to exchange with the group.

By the day of the swap, three banquet tables overflowed with strips of every color and hue. We paraded around the room to the festive rhythm of “Macarena,” snatching a strip from each table we passed. Between the music, laughter and fabric flying, we looked like a crazy conga line or raucous game of musical chairs. "Hey, Macarena!" 

Some chose their strips at random while others had a particular color scheme in mind. I selected 1930s-style colors and prints for my quilt. 

After sorting and sewing our strips into strata (6 strip sets), we used this 45 Degree Kaleidoscope Wedge Ruler to cut the eight segments required for each block. 

Coordinating the colors within each block was lots of fun... 

but, I liked the scrappiness of mixing random strips almost as much.

Nothing went to waste. My leftover strips found their way into the scrappy border.

I chose a 1930s-style print for the back too and bound the quilt in pink.

Kaleidoscope or Spider Web 

84" x 100"

Machine quilted by Stover Quality Quilting.